Brooke hugged him. Wanted to make it right for him. And in that instant it struck her quite forcefully that she loved him.

But she had to tell him the worst.

‘I’ve got more bad news, Ed,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry.’

She felt him tense.

‘DogNut,’ she said.

‘DogNut?’ Ed’s voice was flat. ‘He was here?’

‘I thought that’s who you were looking for, to be honest.’

‘He found you then?’

‘Yeah.’ Brooke wondered how to tell him. In the end she knew there was only one way. ‘He’s dead,’ she said. ‘I’m so sorry, Ed.’

Ed’s body began to shake. He sagged and buried his face in her shoulder.

‘Him and Courtney,’ said Brooke, stroking his back. ‘They were trying to get back to the Tower. I was going with them. We were ambushed. It was during the day. We never expected it. They killed DogNut and Courtney. They did this to my face. Ella and Sam’s friends rescued me. It’s a long, long story, Ed, but I guess I’m going to have to tell you all of it.’

‘Not now,’ said Ed. ‘I’ve had enough for now.’

They stood there like that, arms round each other, Ed’s friends looking on awkwardly, and the darkness of their world seemed to settle all around them.

Finally Ed spoke.

‘What am I going to tell Sam …?’

Chapter 94

94

Maeve, Robbie, Ella and Monkey-Boy were in high spirits. They could not believe their luck. The car was running smoothly and they hadn’t seen a single grown-up all morning.

It had taken them ages to get on to the M4. First they’d had to skirt all round the museum so that nobody saw or heard the car. Then, from what Blue had told them, they knew they couldn’t actually join the motorway until after the roundabout where the bridge had collapsed. So Robbie had picked a route that kept close by. The only problem was that so many of the streets were blocked. There were buildings tumbled over by fire; there were fallen lamp posts and wrecked vehicles. Twice they’d got lost and ended up back where they started, but eventually they’d found their way on to the motorway out near Brentford.

Robbie wasn’t the best driver in the world. The car was an automatic so he didn’t have to worry about gears, but he still kept getting muddled between the brake and the accelerator, and they would jerk and lurch about in the road. The last thing he wanted was to crash their precious car so he went painfully slowly, and once they’d hit the motorway he hardly sped up at all. He was like an old man out for a Sunday drive. They crawled along, Robbie hunched over the steering wheel and squinting through the grubby windscreen. They’d cleaned it as best they could, but the washer was empty.